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Tuesday, June 14, 2011

First Tomato

My first tomato of the season! It's been unusually wet and cool this summer, and that equals a tardy tomato crop. So, while others are sustaining themselves from their gardens on a daily basis, I've been monitoring this one little tomato for the past few weeks. Solemnly, I took a photo, then popped it into my mouth. Bliss.

This is a close up of my worm bin. Last week, I tossed some bok choy ends into the bin. This week, they're all regenerating and kind of freaking me out. It's hard to tell in this photo, but there are three sprouts (is that the right word?) coming from the stem. The boy wants to plant these and add them to his little discarded vegetable garden which thus far only has some sprouted onion tops that are thriving. The problem with those sprouted onion tops is that the old onion tops are still attached and they look rotten, so I'm not quite sure what is going on there. However, the boy will persevere because he likes thinking of himself as the punk gardener who goes around breaking conventional gardening rules.

Accidentally, this bin became a second compost bin. It's been going strong for a few years, dutifully digesting paper egg cartons and overflow vegetable scraps that my official worm bin cannot handle, and to my astonishment, worms have magically appeared inside the bin. Mind you, there's no holes in this bin and it sits on a concrete slab. How did they get in there? I suspect that our pitchfork was the vector. Regardless, I'll have to decide when it's done so I can let it rest and fully decompose. Currently, although only 1/4 full, it feels like it's full of lead.

3 comments:

I have a whole Roma tomato crop growing in my composter! So I replanted (some of) them. Figured why not! I'm not sure if second generation will grow as good as first. I have some sprouts, if you want some! :)

Mine still have a way to go because I'm a big 'pincher' of buds when the plants are small. However, this is my first real year gardening in this Zone 9 craziness & I'm thinking the tomatoes will be taking over the yard by September. Seriously, the crazy things are popping above the tall cages already. This would be a full sized plant for my old Michigan garden! My neighbor's gardener peaked over the fence yesterday and laughed at how close together they are planted. Who knew tomatoes could get so big?